Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday May 21, 2009 @07:44AM
from the because-it-was-boring dept.

brumgrunt writes "Sarah Connor was a non-populist, meditative, complex piece of television on a smash-bang, show-me-the-ratings kind of network. The two were never going to get on. Plus: how the Terminator name proved more hindrance than aid."

Movie 1. Robot from the future comes back in time to kill someone but another human is also sent back in time to try to save them.

Movie 2. See 1 but there is another robot sent back instead of a human.

Movie 3. See 2.

TV series, see 3.

Will the killer robot kill the hero this week? Will the hero robot kill the killer robot this week? And the plot never changes. The killer robot doesn't take out the rest of humanity. It doesn't even try to kill his grandparents. Great-grandparents. Etc.

Once the killer robot gets a head shot on the boy (he's dead, no chance of resuscitation) the show is over. The "very complex plot with many main characters" collapses because there is nothing else to carry it.

The "very complex plot with many main characters" collapses because there is nothing else to carry it.

A well written series would not have that flaw.

maybe the robots realized that if they killed him, then he would not have thwarted their evil plans, so they would never have been sent back in time in the first place, which would enable him to live long enough to save humanity?

In the '70s, Doctor Who was shown in 20-25 minute episodes. At the end of each one, it was not unusual for The Doctor to be in some seemingly-hopeless situation, which he would usually escape within the first minute of the next episode. One reviewer commented:

We don't watch to see if he survives, we watch to see how he survives

It's the same with a show like this. We know the protagonist isn't going to die, but we watch to see how he manages it.

But it IS exactly like that - the basic plot has not changed, ever - always exactly one "good guy" and one "bad guy" sent back in time and they duke it out for survival of humanity. As a very short synopsis, the main plot has not changed.

Personally, I watched the first 6 episodes or so of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and completely lost interest - I didn't find the writing all that inspired or inspiring. Even the first episode was derivative - it was T3 all over, except set in a school not a veterinarian clinic. Or was it T2 all over when good Terminator saves John Connor from the bad Terminator at his house?

I was much more disappointed with the cancellation of Life On Mars - I was actually starting to enjoy the US version (I still liked the UK version better, but the US version had merits). I can't think of a sci-fi show on TV right now that I really care about - most are uninspired or derivative (Caprica? Stargate Universe? Come on SyFy - come up with something interesting besides rehashed series and monster movies/shows [which is everything else - Sanctuary, Primeval, etc]).

Considering the explanation in Terminator about why the Terminator killed those other Sarah Connors, I don't believe Skynet would have even known where to begin with trying to kill John's grandparents. And anyone who knows timetravel knows you don't just go back and kill everything in sight. Skynet could end up ensuring that it never gets created.

That's a too circular, which wouldn't explain how the machines got created in the first place.

T2 made a point to say that Cyberdyne expedited (but not originally responsible for) the development of skynet and the machines. T3 (as crappy as it was) drives this point by stating that no matter what, "Judgement Day" was inevitable (thus couldn't be stopped by simply destroying Cyberdyne), and that skynet would be created with or without Cyberdyne- this time the Air Force's Cyber Research division would be responsible.

If in the original film, the 1st Terminator sent back had indeed completed it's mission and killed Sarah Connor, then that would have ensured Skynet never gets/will be created.

I don't agree. There were two possible endings to the story in Terminator 1 -- Either the T-800 is destroyed and pieces of it are recovered by Cyberdyne systems or it survives and, to quote a famous engineer from another movie about time travel, "How do we know he didn't invent the thing?" Cyberdyne systems could have found themselves with a new chief researcher with a few odd habits and a mean temper.

The only way for the closed time loop which created Skynet to be broken is if the Terminator is completely destroyed such that no trace of its existance can be found. This happened in the last scene of Terminator 2, which is why the story ended there and no effort was made to make a second sequel, TV series, or anything else like that.

T3 kinda addressed that though. Even with the chip destroyed, and all the research at Cyberbyne gone, Skynet was still created by a seperate time a bit later.

Part of the theme of that movie (and part of what the show missed and I hated it for) was that Skynet was sort of an unavoidable eventuality of humanity's drive towards better computers and technology. Skynet is going to come about regardless, and everything the Connor's do is only staving off the inevitable.

I think that in the same manner, Skynet is also trying to fight the inevitable. If by some weird chance he kills John, another leader WILL take his place. Just as humanity is destined to create an AI opponent so are they destined to create a leader to fight it. That's the neat thing about the last episode of the show that I did like (thought it was not addressed too deeply). When John jumps forward that last time, he jumps into the future. He skipped the entire time that he was supposed to be fighting. NOBODY knew him or had every heard of John Connor . . . yet the resistance was still there and fighting.

That's what bugs me about Sarah Connor. Rather than trying to prevent the war which is basically going to happen regardless, her ass should be stocking up on weapons, ammo, etc, and John should be becoming as badass as possible. Essentially, everything that was implied as happening off-screen between T1 and T2 that they just gave up on after another terminator showed up.

Because the terminator traveling across country hitting up county courthouses for birth certificates isn't nearly as interesting.

Could be.

This week, on Terminator: The Registrar Chronicles:

(ring)
"County Clerk's Office, how may I help you?"
"I need ze birth certificate for Sarah Connor"
"Are you a parent or next-of-kin?"
"Negative."
"We'll need some documentation that you're the parent or next-of-kin to provide birth records to you."
"I'll be back..."

I've jumped around watching a few TtSCC shows from hulu, and from that perspective it's just as full of the same high-school coming of age / romance angst as the rest of teen television (see: Buffy, Roswell, 90210, and a dozen others I'm sure...)

The real question is: What's Summer Glau's next psycho chick series role going to be?

The execs at fox (or whoever sets the schedule) put this show on a FRIDAY evening. I don't know how it is now, but when I was a kid, we didn't stay home (especially during a school year) to watch tv. We were out running around, going to the movies, on a date, raising hell. If the people who produced this show were to somehow relaunch this show on another network, say USA or Sci-Fi, and stick it in a good time slot, it would do better. Sticking a show on a Friday evening is like sticking nails in a coffi

I've just gotten tired of Yet Another Uber-Aggressive Fight Babe stories. They've become too common for me to suspend disbelief that there really are that many physically aggressive women in this world that beat up men on a regular basis.

Sci-fi stories don't all take part in the same Universe, and there are only 2 properly hard women in TTSCC (not including Cameron). Though I noticed the guy who invented Ghost in the Shell does seem to like his female protagonists (Dominion Tank Police, Appleseed, and probably more I don't know about), and he doesn't do much to make them unique from show to show..

yes, they realised that Firefly DVD sales are still strong so.... they give Dollhouse another season while cancelling all the good shows.

SCC had its moments, and I think overall it was very good, even if I had to yawn through the moody pauses as Sarah says "so, John, how do you feel", as he just looks moody in the half-distance. Perhaps they were trying to increase the female watching figures.

They gave Dollhouse another season because although the people watching the show live were pretty low, the number of people watching the show on DVR, iTunes, and Hulu were big and kept growing. More importantly, Joss convinced them that he could do the show for less money, and had an episode that he'd basically put together for free to seal the deal.

Everyone says it's because Firefly turned out to be huge after the fact, but I doubt that would have swung the guys at Fox if they weren't able to see a real increase in the bottom line.

I think the point was Dollhouse vs Firefly, not Dollhouse vs SCC. Dollhouse got pretty interesting towards the end, but it was not a patch on Firefly.

Fox have now acknowledged their mistake in cancelling Firefly by saying "Hmm, we made a mistake last time. Rather than resurrect the show we shouldn't have cancelled in the first place for a second season, we'll renew the newer, less popular show by the same people."

I never watched an episode either, but when you consider the easiest ways to keep a male viewers attention are to a) have an attractive woman (see Chuck or Burn Notice) b) who can kick ass (see Chuck or Burn Notice) or c) cause big explosions and who d) wears skimpy/revealing clothes (see Chuck or Burn Notice), it would be logical to assume they would toss this out from time-to-time to keep that segment of the viewers happy.

I observed that as the ratings went down, so did the amount of clothing she wore. There was a preview near the end where she strolled through the shot in a bra and panties.(Do terminators even wear undies? Seems kinda pointless.)

I think more to the point it was none of those things. He's using the terms to rationalize why the show was canceled. Basically saying the show was too good for FOX and that's what FOX canceled it but if it was on another network, it would have lived on...honestly, no, because it SUCKED!

A simpler explanation is that this show was just another attempt to increase the profits of the terminator franchise. I suspect that given the number of people involved, and the number of people that had to be paid off to gain the rights to the characters, ideas, and franchise made the show too expensive.
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It seems to me that the same show could have been made with new characters at a lower cost. I am sure the network thought the fact that this was terminator meant that more people would watch it and they would recover the additional costs. Obviously they were wrong.

A simpler explanation is that this show was just another attempt to increase the profits of the terminator franchise.

I don't think that in itself a problem - I'm looking forward to seeing Terminator 4, after all - I guess the problem was trying to cash in on the name, but also Fox expecting it could be done on the cheap.

Whether it was an attempt to make profit or not, I've always thought a TV series spin off would be interesting to see - in particular, showing stories set during the war (which this series d

Maybe the problem is with the franchise. It seems so-last-decade. Reality is so much more interesting than silver liquid robots from the future.

I could never accept that in the two seasons barely any mention was made of the forces that are really behind robotic and large database development. It was as if DARPA, the defense industry, the "war on terror", the growth of domestic surveillance, insatiable corporate data aggregation, battlefield robots and drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc., didn't exist. The series had ample opportunities to be relevant and insightful about human psychology, social trends and politics. But it wasn't.

Heck, even BSG was able to weave some aspect of current events into the psychology and philosophy of the show.

To be handed this great plot tool ("hey, we're going to take the premise of Terminator but not comply with the timelines") and not use its capable writing to explore present-day dilemmas was, in my mind, a travesty.

Of course, maybe they did and Skynet (by which I mean FOX) made them change the scripts.

The reason it died, is because the first season and a half were mediocre, and it only really ramped up to 'being good' right towards the end of season 2.
As slow starters go, it's not really any suprise it's canned.

I have a slightly different take. I thought Season 1 was pretty good and showed promise. The best episodes were on Season 2. Of course, the most god-awful episodes were on Season 2, also.

During Season 1, I remember telling a friend of mine that I like the show, but that I worried it would fall into a cliched formula: meet a new character each week who was there for only the one episode, solve that character's problem, and then forget about the whole thing. Sadly, Season 2 had a lot of this "Touched By A Terminator" nonsense.

The last half-dozen episodes, tying up the whole Riley thread and all, were very, very good. But, the show died because it deserved to. It could have been a good show. Unfortunately, it was a very uneven effort.

The reason I want to see the movie today is because I enjoyed the TV series.

I have to wonder if part of the problem is the "ratings" system itself. Isn't it possible that while Neilsen families aren't watching it, college kids and others are watching it... owe WERE watching it?

Fox and other networks are going to have to put up their OWN bit torrent shares of their TV shows and start seeing for themselves which ones are the most popular and which ones aren't. It won't stop people from looking at the TV when it's on. It won't stop people from buying the DVDs when they come out. (I downloaded every episode of the terminator TV series, bought season one and am waiting for season two on DVD so I can clear up the space on my drives.)

These media publishers and their digital phobias... they need to USE the digital and not fear it so much.

They do use the digital. Believe me, they're watching the numbers for iTunes, Hulu, and DVRs. And if those numbers are strong, they can help (signs are that they helped Joss make his case for Dollhouse). But fundamentally, Internet and DVRs don't bring the ad revenue, and that's where the network's bread is buttered.

The trade press reported very early this year that one of the only reason the show was renewed for the past season was because the production company (Warner Bros.) ate some of the normal costs associated with it so that it could serve as advertising for Terminator: Salvation. Absent a willingness for the production company to do that in the future, FOX can no longer make money on the series.

Compare the show to a show with worse ratings that did get renewed: Dollhouse. Dollhouse is produced by 20th Centu

The show was good, a handful of people here saying it sucked makes no difference in the big picture. What the article dosn't talk about was the change-over in corporate leadership and show time scheduling. As the studio leadership changed over, they had new people take over that wanted to push their perfered shows; the re-do the scheduleing and put Terminator: TSCC at a time slot that was certin to kill the show, just so they could take the better time slot and push their programming. Also, they never really announced when they changed from the orignal show day and time. The die hard fans picked up on this, but the regular viewers who enjoyed the show had no clue and figured, hey guess it got cancelled and never bothered to look into it further, so the ratings dropped, and the show finally did get cancelled. Too bad, it was a good story line, and they never had filler episodes, each episode was a continuation of the previous, which i liked very much.

I can understand trying to build a storyline to try to build a base to build the story on, but to spend an entire season doing so...not the way to make good TV. They spent the entire season moving towards something, but we never really got any idea of the something until the last 45 minutes of the season.

let me spell out a basic point here: Terminator = Action there was little action this season.

Networks are now interested in "reality" shows where they can get a bunch of stupid, likeable-only-by-morons, "contestants" to make complete twats of themselves, and who are naive enough to be easily manipulated into becoming a corporate cash cow and puppet. That is, until the fickle audience grow weary of them; usually within a few weeks.

A lot of TV shows have vanished from our screens because of this: Terminator, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Frasier, Samantha Who... the list is endless.

And when you have much of the western world swooning over a 48 year old singer who shows up to Britain's Got Talent, why the fuck would you want to pay script writers, actors, researchers, and marketers? These people cost money; they're a drain on profits.

From the boardroom's point of view, you can't beat a bunch of teenagers with mobile phones who are willing to text 30 votes a night, at £1 per message to shove someone onto a global stage and thereby generate even more revenue when you dig them out a year later.

This is the future of television, people; that's why I watch so little of it these days.

Do you not remember television from 10 and 20 years ago? I grew up watching a lot of TV. When I try to watch a rerun of Knight Rider, Different Strokes, Dukes of Hazzard, Three's Company, or just about anything else I used to like, I can barely believe that these shows were actually successful.

Cripes, TV today is waaaay better than it has ever been. Yes, there is a lot of crap out there and some if it is very popular (and thus profitable), but I wouldn't write TV off just yet.

A lot of TV shows have vanished from our screens because of this [reality shows]

Umm.... citation?

Shows have been canceled since the dawn of television. How are you so certain that those shows were canceled "because" of a corporate obsession with reality shows? Terminator was canceled because it didn't have enough viewers. Scrubs had 8 seasons and Frasier had 11 seasons... is that not a long enough run for a show? Are shows supposed to continue forever?

I'm not saying that the popularity of reality shows hasn't put a dent in the amount of money networks will spend on conventional fiction

Frasier? Seriously? You're blaming the end of Frasier on reality TV? Really? It didn't have anything to do with the fact that the show had an ELEVEN year run? It wasn't about the fact that the show ran its course, as all shows do? It died because of reality TV? Seriously?

I understand your basic point and actually agree with it in large part. Reality TV has changed the way networks view TV but to say that a show which had an exceptionally long run on TV ended because of reality TV rather than it just being the natural course of things is actually hurting your point rather than reinforcing it.

My assumption was that it was going to be a cheesy capitalization on the Terminator franchise to drum up attention for T4. Fortunately, episodes were on Hulu (take note network execs) and it quickly became my favorite television series.

I'm sure this was a pervasive problem. The movies are mostly generic action movies (although I think T2 stands out). The best selling points of the Sarah Connor Chronicles--intricate plot, interesting and well-developed characters, emotional conflict, etc.--are exactly what you would assume to be weak-points if you watched the movies. Even though I enjoyed the movies, I was ready to skip the series, because even if they kept up with blockbuster quality shooting, I just didn't think that I'd like to see the same kind of plot stretched over a season. But now I wish the movies had been more like the series.

I loved especially how they would often shoot episodes using different styles of storytelling. It is a nice break from formula-shows (another huge surprise coming from the Terminator franchise!) and shows a true mastery of skill.

I am alright with the series ending where it did, however. They tied up all the loose ends introduced previously despite popping a few new ones, and I'd rather have a great series come to a dignified close than have it devolve into some dumbed down marketing-droid version which would force me to start hating it.

I hope like other well-done film, which was not immediately popular, that the Sarah Connor Chronicles will gradually gain wide renown and inspire emulation.

One of the reasons mentioned is the same reason I didn't like Heros and 24. If you missed the first couple of episodes, you may as well go home.

I'm pretty good at gathering threads up just from watching a show for a few minutes (pisses off my wife who can't seem to follow along and she's watched 24 from the first episode).

So I suspect, and the article seems to confirm it, that the show was written with an eye towards releasing it to DVD.

My wife and I watched Heroes first season and I really like it. Enough that I wanted to watch it when it came on for the second season. But with the commercials every 10 minutes and 5 minutes of commercials at the end, I finally bailed. I'm sure I'll get the DVD for the second series and will probably like it a lot.

24 is similar. It's written from start to finish. Like a long movie. You wouldn't come in in the middle of a movie and expect to understand what's going on.

So we'll get Heroes as they're released, my wife'll get 24 (she already has the first couple of seasons), and we'll get SCC when it's out on DVD (if it isn't already).

Cliff: Well ya see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

I avidly watched that show, but come on. This is all about the fun of seeing Sarah Connor and Cameron trying to look normal. And Cameron beating up people of course (cue xkcd etc).

It's by no mean meditative or complex. Take for example the Turk. A chess program is one of the root of Skynet? Give me a break. Chess programs were cool and impressive 10 years ago. Chess is a narrow game, it's not a measure of intelligence.

Say the writers had picked "Poker" instead. Now that would be interesting. First of all, the show would ride on the wave of popularity of the game... second the game is much more complex. Third, the game requires bots to have a model of the opponents behavior, especially human behavior. Now that's interesting. There are many many ideas that could have been explored. Instead the writers choose the cheap trope, chess = intelligence, chess program = AI.

They could also have tried to explain why skynet does not entirely wipe humanity in the first second of its existence... I mean terminator robots? A super intelligence can surely engineer something more subtle, like a virus.

The only explanation I find is that skynet is mildly retarded, it has the mind of a teenager from the 80's and think robots are cool.

1. It was on Fox. They always cancel good shows after one season.2. That this show wasn't good was why it got a second season. Being scifi was the final nail in the coffin.3. It wasn't very good and didn't have much direction. Writers wasted too much time on meaningless filler.4. Most fundamental problem -- the Terminator universe is tapped out. There's not really many more stories to tell, at least not with the current characters.5. They're trying to follow up a mega-budget best action movie of all time with a small-budget TV series. Never will a budget be more painfully obvious than in that situation. "We can't afford to fight the Romulans, we don't have the budget for it! We'll have to negotiate."

After T2 I felt that there was really no more need for any sequels, the story was done. If they absolutely had to tell a story, the only one left was the future war. Keeping up with the time travel at this point would have just become a paradox wankfest. T3 turned out to be as weak as everyone feared. T4 has the potential of being good but some of the reviews I read are fairly devastating saying it has 'splosions but no heart, no characters to invest in.

As far as a Terminator TV show goes, it has all the weaknesses of a time travel movie sequel. More terminators have to get sent back, it runs the risk of becoming Highlander except instead of immortal of the week we get terminator of the week. You also end up with villain decay. Arnie was terrifying in T1 and it took a whole movie to kill him. In the TV show you have T-800's showing up and getting whacked with a single blow. Granted, in T1 they had access to shitty weapons and a T1 going up against infantry with heavy weapons would actually be at a disadvantage. Arnie never moved fast enough to avoid taking hits in T1, he was just tough enough to absorb the damage. If the cops were armed with 50 cal machine guns, he'd probably have been immobilized. Anti-armor weapons would blow pieces off of him, hyper-alloy combat chassis or no. But this makes a lot of sense. A Terminator isn't designed to be the perfect armored fighting machine, that's what the huge tanks and hunter-killers were for. The Terminator was about infiltration, trading protection for camouflage. It can pass for a human until it gets close enough to do some damage. It can crawl through the warrens the humans live in, places where the larger units can't fit.

The producers really should have gone and invented their own show instead of making a Terminator spin-off. But if they were dead-set on doing Terminator, they should have just set the whole thing in its own continuity and said "Let's do a Terminator where we don't ignore time paradoxes but embrace them." Show the timelines changing over the course of the show, some things the characters recognize and other things are left only to the audience to observe. Ok, so originally Skynet is getting its ass kicked and decides to time travel to stop the resistance. The war was sixty years in the future and there was no John Connor, it was trying to kill someone else. Kyle Reese was sent back in time, couldn't protect the original target but met and fell in love with Sarah Connor and fathers John Connor. Knowing that the war was coming, they can create a resistance movement before Skynet strikes. The war still happens and now Skynet makes the same time travel assassination decision but focuses on John Connor instead. It fails but pieces are left behind from the original Terminator which accelerates the research program that develops Skynet. Skynet itself is unaware of these changes to the timeline. When it tries sending back a T1000, it schisms the timeline and now there are two competing futures with one common past. Only one of these futures can be realized. So now Skynet is at war with itself since each one wants to be the sole victor.

The way that would play out in the show would have been a fucking head trip. Events of previous episodes may or may not have happened. Characters who were killed may end up being alive again no

Never did watch this Terminator series. To be honest I'm getting bored of the whole series model. The idea these days seems to be to start off as many subplots as possible and then take care never to resolve anything so that there's always room for another season. Then you string it out for as long as you can until you get cancelled. If you're lucky you get a really rushed ending in two episodes that clumsily attempts to tie up the storyline. Quite often not though.

I wasn't always a fan of Babylon 5, but you have to admire the coherency of the plot. Straczynski designed the plot for the first 4 seasons before he even started making the first. He even made forward references to future seasons in the first.

Place this in stark contrast to Lost, where it's clear that there is no long term game plan and they're just trying to keep people guessing for as long as possible. What's the point in guessing if there isn't, and never has been, an answer?

I wasn't always a fan of Babylon 5, but you have to admire the coherency of the plot. Straczynski designed the plot for the first 4 seasons before he even started making the first.

He actually had the main plot threads laid out for all five seasons several years before the show started filming. The uncertainty of the show being picked up for a fifth season forced him to rush the end of the fourth season a bit, so he had to fill in a few episodes for the fifth season. If I remember correctly, the fourth season was supposed to end with what became episode 17 or 18, so most of the fifth season was part of the original plan.

Eh what? Lost is the most extreme case of forward planning I've ever seen. If you think they don't have it all planned out you're not paying attention. Did you notice that the 4 toed statue was first encountered in passing in season 2, then barely featured again until the last episodes of season 5? How about the way Pierre Chang first appeared with a prosthetic right arm in a mysterious video way back at the start of season 2, and right at the end of season 5 you see the accident in which he got that bad arm? He wasn't just thrown in randomly as "mysterious dude with bad arm" and then reintroduced later, it hangs together too well for that.

Quite. It was known during season 1 that Carleton Cuse, Damon Lindeloff, and J.J. Abrams (The main writers and producers of Lost) had worked out the ending to the series already.
The only season that began to meander around was season 3 because the network had not finalized an end date. Once that was negotiated it was right back on track and it is amazing how few plots holes exist in the epic storyline of LOST...which has only one more season remaining.

Yes and no.They do have the overall story planned. It progresses nicely and logically. They don't have all the minor details in place; they can't even plan very well ahead as there are many unforeseen events (just look at Babylon 5 and how they had to replace Sinclair with Sheridan for example).

When you have the story laid out correctly, you get Babylon 5 or Lost. When you don't, you get Heroes.

What's even more amazing is that the 5 year arc had to adapt to the whims of actors - at least 2 called it quits. Claudia Christian (Susan Ivanova) made unreasonable demands for cash, so the character had to go away. Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters) wanted out to persue other non-sci-fi acting projects. The story arc still required a strong telepath as a super weapon so Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander) was brought in. Instead of the characters of Talia and her lover Jason Ironheart fulfilling the role, the character of Byron was brought in to play against Lyta. That's not the only case where actors forced a change to the plot but JMS managed to rework it and hold together the arc.

Unfortunately JMS succumbed and gave us Crusade which wasn't nearly as compelling. He also turned into an egomaniac that would break into tantrums about fans distributing work that never made it to screen. Pity, because B5 was one hell of a show, even if it had it's crap moments. It's the only show I have on VHS and DVD.

Claudia Christian (Susan Ivanova) made unreasonable demands for cash, so the character had to go away.

Debatable. I saw Claudia Christian on stage at a con the weekend of the announcement, and she told her side of the story. She said that she had just asked for some time off (three or four episodes) to work on other projects, and Strazynski refused. That was the deal-breaker in her new contract, so she refused to sign. Then JMS spread the story that she was greedy. She said in public that she did not ask for more money.

As I said, this is her side of the story, but I found her very personable and believable.

Place this in stark contrast to Lost, where it's clear that there is no long term game plan and they're just trying to keep people guessing for as long as possible. What's the point in guessing if there isn't, and never has been, an answer?

The meandering plot arcs of Lost all make sense when you realize that in the series finale they find Gilligan.

A series is a great way to tell stories, though. It allows for much more depth and character development than a single movie. It also allows for stories to be told without all the overhead of introducing us to the characters and the setting every time.

The problem is that series are typically weakened by the economics of television. They have to be designed so that people can pick them up in the middle of the series, which means they have to be made simplistic or repetitive. (This wouldn't be a problem if we

You make a good point about series there. TV should do more miniseries in which a story is developed and completed drawing to a definite ending. The stories are more compelling when they don't look like they're contrived to keep the series going indefinitely.

it would look poor for each season of Terminator to wrap up with "Skynet is defeated" and then the next say "Oh wait, no it isn't!"

Oh absolutely, and it's annoying when that stuff happens.

But at the same time it would be nice just sometimes to have something that was thought out in advance and planned over a few seasons to tell a definite story. I.E. skynet defeated by end of S3. No "well it's popular, lets string it out" or "it's unpopular, wrap it up folks!"

Hmm... It's kinda hard to compare a cutie who can tear a spaceship apart & put it back together, then have a beer with the guys and laugh at stupid jokes, all the while being so frickin' adorable you just want to buy her a pony or something - and a super-killer-tough-chick who seems to have been born with an axe in one hand and a gun in the other. Two different worlds, man, two worlds.

...Summer Glau does need a sandwich, though.

P.S. If you haven't watched "Firefly" / "Serenity" yet, you're missing the best show that was ever on Sci-Fi. Srsly. It's so good that fans bought advertising at their own expense.

As harsh as the AC above is, they definitely have a point. You can't see Glau's bones in her arms and, from carefully studying all the large size pictures I found find of her on Google Image search (some of the most worthwhile studying I've ever done...) I believe that those are her natural boobs.

Breasts are pretty much the first thing to go on a woman when they stop eating - they're mostly made of fat after all. After that you can see the bones in their arms and also the bone structure in the face becomes clearly visible.

Victoria Beckham [wordpress.com] is one of the classic celebrity examples of someone who doesn't eat enough. Notice the fake breasts - you can clearly see her right nipple through that top, it points slightly up and to the right - and you can see her cheek bones far too clearly.

I'm not saying she has a proper eating disorder as that would be totally unfair and impossible for me to know. I'm just pointing out that that's what people start to look like when they do have a disorder. Obviously it can get far worse; I've known an adult woman whose weight fell to about 4 stone.

Summer Glau is physically perfect, neither too fat nor too thin. We should have her preserved, naked and petrified, for all time!

They have ships that can move from planet to planet with relative ease (and seemingly great speed) and yet they still used 6-shooters and shotguns as their weapon of choice. WTF Mate?

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if kinetic energy (things that shoot stuff at high velocities) will always be the weapon of choice even far in the future. Even with advanced materials of today, it's really hard to stop a very fast and heavy projectile without using something very heavy which would still probably take permanent damage. Phasers just seemed silly to me because if you had the technology to create such a thing, you probably had the technological level create some lightweight device that could repel such a weapon.

Even if there were advanced weapons, the crew of Firefly could barely afford to keep the ship together, so it make sense that they would use old school weapons.

That seemed to really bother a lot of people though I never understood why. Nobody complains that Han Solo uses an 1896 Mauser that shoots some kind of energy beam that travels slow enough to visually track. But weapons that a colonist blacksmith could make, that's just crazy talk.

Actually I think you hit it with the second sentince. It became more about angst (and artificial angst) than about Sci-fi or anything else meaningful. I watched up thru the first half of the second season, and I got frustrated with the characters constantly finding soap-opera reasons for being angry with each other.

The characters just did not seem to take the situation they were in seriously, despite everything they had seen and experienced up to that point. And what ever writer came up with the overused